


The Angel in Duck Lane

by katarzi



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Crossover, F/M, M/M, Pre-Hanging Tree, all pairings implied or background, this is gen fic my dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 12:56:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17828990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarzi/pseuds/katarzi
Summary: The unexpected lurks around any corner, and sometimes the theological implications are more than Peter Grant wants to really think about right now, thanks.





	The Angel in Duck Lane

**Author's Note:**

> Oooold unpublished fic. Written pre-Hanging Tree, long before we knew anyone was putting GO in any other media at all, and not long after I visited the place where the Folly would be and realized that it wasn't very far at all from the British Museum, and nothing precluded Crowley and Aziraphale from existing in Peter Grant's universe.

February, on the whole, is a month not known for spikes in criminal activity. In fact some studies suggest that February is one of those months where people just don't feel up to committing crimes; there's less theft, less arson, less common assault. People are simply way more likely to start beating each other up and running off with each other's wallets when it's hot out, and even with global warming February in London isn't exactly hot enough to drive people into rages. I wouldn't say these observations are statistically sound—last time anyone released an official report trying to tie patterns of criminal activity to specific seasons people got worked up about it—but right now, at the tail end of a February almost totally devoid of magic-related crime, I was willing to believe it.

There was so little to do, in fact, that there were no more reports left for me to write or at least carefully edit so that the precious minds of the Met’s higher-ups could continue on in determined ignorance of the world around them. I’d finished the last of the month’s training webinars the previous day, and I’d even read all the latest policy briefings—okay, that’s a lie, I did that regularly. It’s good to know the rules before you break them, or at least cite them in reports to cover up incidents. But the point is that with my daily routine of checking emails, magic practice, and walking Toby over and done with, I’d completely run out of things to do and it was only quarter past two. 

Which is how I found myself searching for books about magic on Google. Technically the case of the Bodleian's missing books was still open, and there was always a slim chance another Little Crocodile had shuffled off this mortal coil and left their library to disinterested relatives. In at least one case so far said disinterested relatives had packed the library off to the nearest rare books dealer in exchange for a down payment on a small home in the suburbs, so it was worth a try. Or at least it was a marginally better use of my time than trying to sort out that retro game emulator on my laptop.

The search was interesting. People buy the strangest books—and not even my kind of strange. Things like composition books from the 1930s, technical manuals for aeroplanes, ticket stubs and bus receipts and old newspaper cuttings. I mean they didn't sell for much, but I figure if you had the kind of grandmother who scrapbooked all her life you might be able to get a couple hundred out of her old clippings, if you found the right buyer.

But more importantly, in amongst the mundane texts written by Newton and Polidori were a few potentially relevant items. There were eight in total, all recently sold by a dealer with the slightly ridiculous name of A. Pringle. The dealer was located in London, which made it at least plausible that they were from Oxford's collection. (Although I guess it was as likely they would come up for sale in America or anywhere else; these weren't the kind of books you just boxed up and dumped at a charity shop if you moved overseas.) Conveniently the buyer had an account too, so I could see who'd bought them—another dealer, also in London. Maybe he flipped books like people on American DIY shows flipped houses. Did that even apply for rare books? If you like, repaired the covers and put the pages back in and cleaned it up so it looked nice, would you make more money off it? I didn't know and I didn't give myself time to find out, just wrote down the buyer's name and address. I did a quick search for the opening hours, which wasn't very helpful; Google knew the place existed but their website hadn't been updated since 2005 and there wasn't a phone number listed.

I checked my watch. It was only just on three. Even if the store closed early, I probably still had at least another half-hour or so before they left. If they didn't want to talk, I could always pull my warrant card on them and claim it was for police business. If they were closed, well—at least I was _doing_ something.

 

—

 

Duck Lane was an alley wedged between Berwick Street and Wardour Street in Soho, barely a kilometre from where Simone and her sisters had lived. _Fell's Books_ was nearly at the end of the lane, in a Victorian storefront haphazardly renovated in the 50s or 60s and marked by a cracked fluorescent sign with BOOKS printed in faded blue. The windows were boarded up from the inside and someone had taped sheets of paper covered in loopy writing all over the front door.[1] It didn't look like any of the other rare book stores I'd visited—not that I'd been to many—but this one looked like it was single-handedly lowering the property values all along the street. 

As soon as I entered the shop I was plunged into a cool, dry darkness and I had to blink quickly to restore my vision. I could smell a hint of smoke, a sooty charcoal smell with a hint of candle wax and burning alcohol, but when my eyes adjusted to the dim yellow light there was nothing burning at all, not even candles. _Vestigia._ Huh. I didn't remember an Ezra Fell on any of the lists of practitioners, and more to the point I didn't remember hearing about a fire in Soho recently.

Someone coughed. I blinked a few more times and my eyes cleared. Ahead of me, in the glow of a green desk lamp (the old-fashioned kind, with a pull cord), a man sat at the shop's counter with a book laid out in front of him.

"May I help you?" he asked in such an unbelievably posh accent that I practically recoiled.

"Are you Mr. Ezra Fell?" I asked in return. Old habits die hard and all that. "I'm DC Peter Grant with the Met. Did you purchase a lot of eight used books from A. Pringle Books and Manuscripts through an online auction last week?"

The man sighed and turned away from me. A second later light flooded the room; he'd flipped the switch on the overhead lights, illuminating the whole shop in watery greenish fluorescence.

"I did," he replied with some hesitation, and gently moved the book he was working on to another part of the counter before pulling off the white cotton gloves he was wearing. He looked me up and down with sharp grey eyes, frowned slightly, and adjusted his glasses. "Is there anything about them you're particularly interested in?"

He didn't want to talk to me, that I could tell. Maybe he knew the books were stolen, or maybe he just read the Daily Mail. He wasn't terribly distinctive, physically; in a crowd of middle-aged rich English men I'm not sure I could have picked him out. He was white, indeterminately middle-aged (late forties? Early fifties?) with dirty blond hair going grey and the kind of old-fashioned wool trousers and jumper combo designed specifically to fight damp. If Nightingale's brand of old-fashioned was the kind packaged up and sold as vintage at ten times its original value, Fell's was the kind found in the bargain bin of rural charity shops: well-worn, bizarrely patterned, and smelling like mothballs.

"They, along with others, were part of a number of books illegally removed from a private collection," I told him.

"Stolen, then?" Fell commented, shuffling things on the counter around.

"Something like it," I replied. "Although at this stage it's more a matter of identification."

The man froze, looking at me sharply. "Indeed?"

"Er. Of the books," I corrected. "We—that is, the Metropolitan Police—are trying to return them to their rightful owner."

He leaned down and pulled out a large, leather-bound ledger book which he dropped on the counter with a _thunk_.

"Well, let's take a look then," Fell said with resignation. He opened the book to a section marked ACQUISITIONS on a tab, then started flipping pages. The list of acquisitions went back an awfully long way, with the first lots dated in the nineteenth century.

"Do you, er, get a lot of new materials in?" I asked, for lack of anything better to say. Fell did not reply, merely continued flipping pages. Right. Didn't want to talk.

I started mentally cataloging the area around the counter: green patterned wallpaper, a tartan curtain hiding the entrance to the back of the shop, heavy wooden shelves with stacks of thin paperbacks and magazines (auction catalogues?) and a row of binders with handwritten labels, things like _CCI NOTES_ and _BRITISH LIBRARY CONSERVATION GUIDES_. Empty Cadbury's canisters filled with pens and pencils and book-binders' tools, awls and bone-folders and paintbrushes. A beige plastic wall-mounted phone, with a cord and everything. Damn, this place was almost as old-fashioned as the Folly. I worried faintly that it was just what _happened_ to practitioners, that I'd find myself living in some awful flat with a Bakelite radio and mustard-coloured wallpaper in ten years whether I wanted to or not.

Eventually Fell stopped flipping pages, staring down at a half-blank page with an entry dated to last week.

"Well," he said at last. "It does appear that I did acquire new books last week. From what seller again, sorry?"

"A. Pringle Books and Manuscripts," I repeated, checking my notes.

He frowned down at the page. "The purchase was through a website, you said?"

"Yes," I replied with studied patience. "Purchased last Thursday, according to sales records."

"Ah, so it appears," said Fell, staring at the ledger book with some surprise. "How many was it again?"

"Eight." I was beginning to suspect he was having me on. There's no _way_ his memory was this bad.

He nodded, dragging his finger down the page as if counting. "Now then, wherever _did_ I put them…"

Fell ducked down and began searching the area around the counter, disturbing a surprisingly large amount of dust and making thumping noises. I coughed.

Thankfully Fell managed to keep his stage-rummaging down to only a minute or so this time before darting out from the side of the counter.

"I'll just be a minute, I think they're over here," he told me, pulling a metal shelving cart with him. I trailed after him, not quite trusting him to come back, but he only went halfway down one aisle and began pulling books off the shelf.

"I am terribly sorry, you know," he said, ascending a step-ladder. "I really am terribly forgetful, I do try and keep track of things, but it's just—oh, you know, forget my own head next…"

He was _definitely_ having me on, I thought, as Fell pulled the cart round to the shop counter. The books looked the right age at least (large, leather-bound, and of course no titles conveniently written on the cover) although I knew I'd have to look inside to check for the various stamps and labels that showed their provenance. Fell carefully lifted the cart, fitting it behind the counter with some effort; I almost offered to help before thinking the better of it. If he was going to put me through nearly twenty minutes of waiting, I wasn't doing him any favours.

Finally Fell placed the first two books on the counter for my inspection. One was larger, bound in green cloth with golden decorative bits and the other was smaller and bound in red leather, with a sort of Persian carpet pattern pressed into it. As I said: they looked right, to my very untrained eye. I'd need Nightingale or Postmartin to confirm, but I figured I would…take them into custody, and if they turned out not to be ours, well. It didn't look like Fell did a lot of selling, anyway.

"Angel," called a voice. Something creaked, and a man emerged from behind the tartan curtain separating the front and back of the shop.  "Come back upstairs. The books will still be the same tomorrow."

He wore a ratty Kew Gardens tee, sweats slung low on his hips, and somewhat incongruously, sunglasses. _Hungover,_ I thought. _Alcohol? Maybe. Could be drugs._ He was skinny enough, with an angular face and good cheekbones. Dark hair, medium-golden skin; with the sunglasses on, the chances of any Met officer getting his IC code right was slim. He looked in my direction, then paused and licked his lips. "Are you talking to a wizard brat?"

Fell sighed. "Good afternoon, dear."

"Excuse me, I'm not—" I started.

"I know one when I see one," the man hissed. "Aziraphale _._ "

"Er, what," I said, but Fell turned around and crossed his arms, leaving me out of the conversation. Fortunately I have few scruples about eavesdropping. I turned away from the counter, pretending to give them some privacy, keeping my ears carefully tuned in their direction.

"Don't tell me you've forgotten what wizards are like," Junkie Boyfriend hissed. "I know it's been a few years—"

Fell snorted. "It's been a lot longer than that, if I recall correctly."

"—the _point_ I am trying to make here is that wizards are a waste of your time, on top of being annoying, so just send this one on his merry way and we can—"

"You're annoying, and that doesn't mean I don't find your company pleasurable."

"Stop it. And don’t tell me you’re actually enjoying this. I mean I knew you had a thing for magic, but—"

"That was just illusions!"

"Ugh," sniffed Junkie Boyfriend. "You don't even know this one's one of the official ones, anyway. If he's on actual business, he'll come back later with a warrant or something. Make them work for it. It’s not like you _want_ to sell anything, after all.”

Footsteps, the sound of the curtain's rusty hooks, then a polite cough.

"I'm sorry about that, Mr. Grant," Fell said curtly. I turned around hurriedly. "I'm afraid I can't sell to you at the moment. I'll need to verify your credentials, you see these are terribly _unique_ works and I wouldn't want them falling into just anyone's hands."

"Can I at least see the book-plates?" I asked. "I just need to check if they're really—"

"No," snapped Fell. "Now if that's quite enough, the shop is closing for the day."

He pulled the cord on the desk lamp and started carefully placing books back onto the shelving cart. "The door is just over there."

"Right," I said. "Right. Er—thank you."

 

 [1] They read, for your information: "NO SOLICITORS" "NO DELIVERIES" "NOT FOR SALE OR RENT" and "NO BOOKS OF AN ADULT NATURE ARE SOLD IN THIS STORE. TRY NEXT DOOR OR THE INTERNET".

—

 

I left the shop empty-handed albeit with my mind swirling. The entire experience was just weird. Vestigia of fire in a bookshop. A book dealer that didn't want to sell any books. Whatever it was the other one was, maybe fae or something else. Either way, there was something about the whole thing I couldn't quite pin down.

When I got back to the Folly, I started to head for the library before changing my mind. It's not like either of the libraries has a searchable database and what was I going to look up if they had one, anyway? "Weird people in London" was hardly unique and I doubted that "weird bookshop in Duck Lane, Soho" was going to bring up much either. [2] So instead I went out to the coach house, hoping vaguely that something exciting had arrived in my email, like a market research survey or a forty-page crime report or literally anything at this point, honestly. 

At dinner that evening I decided I'd mention the whole thing to Nightingale. Best case scenario, I got answers; worst case scenario, I'd probably get accused of having poor manners or something. Safe enough odds. Instead I got Nightingale carefully composing his face in a way that suggested he was manfully restraining himself from snickering.

"You've met the Angel of London, I see," he said, smiling faintly. "He is a…fixture of the city."

"The _what?_ " I coughed. 

"The angel," repeated Nightingale slowly, looking at me with mild concern as I tried to cover my sudden choking fit. "Of London."

Recovering, I took a sip of water. "D'you mean like… _angel_ angel, or like, metaphorical doer of good deeds?"

"He is, as far as anyone knows, an actual angel," Nightingale replied.

"So does that mean the Christian god is real? Do I have to worry about learning the entire Judeo-Christian pantheon of spiritual beings?" I asked, starting to panic slightly. I don't know a lot about theology, but I am 90% sure it involves _more Latin_ which is above and beyond. I've learned there's a lot of weird things out there in the last two years, but somehow the idea that there is in fact concrete evidence for the existence of monotheistic deities was more than I personally could handle.

Nightingale put down his knife and fork. "I wouldn't worry yourself over it, Peter. There's only the two of them as far as I'm aware. Various texts _have_ referred to angels and demons across the centuries, though many of those reports can be attributed to more familiar supernatural beings or more commonly, to entirely mundane causes."

I nodded. Seemed reasonable enough. Wizards were one thing, but demons? Nah.

"Wait," I said. "You said there's _two?_ "

"There is also the Serpent," Nightingale answered.

"As in…?"

"The Serpent of Eden."

"What the _fuck_."

"Language."

"Sorry, sir, I—just, look. There are _limits_. If I'm going to believe that you actually mean the snake from Genesis, the actual proverbial snake in the grass, that means I'm accepting that humanity is descended from two people, that Creationism is real, that over a century of evolutionary science is _a lie_." I started to warm up to my subject. "Not to mention that, should all of that be true, we are talking about a creature that is _thousands of years old_ , older than the Old Man, older than continental drift, absolutely _ancient_. And you're having me believe there's an ancient snake around, possibly in London, and _no one has noticed?"_

"Oh no, it's not quite like that," said Nightingale. "He's not a snake, at least not anymore. No more than your Ms. Brook is an actual river."

Something wiggled loose from the back of my brain. "Does he, by any chance, have dark hair, really good cheekbones, wears sunglasses indoors…?"

"Typically," Nightingale replied. "Although the snake eyes are usually what gives him away."

 _Holy shit,_ I thought. Not only was the weird not-a-bookseller an honest-to-God, Heaven-sent _angel_ , his boyfriend was _the serpent of Eden._

"Regardless," continued Nightingale. "If you are genuinely interested in those books you mentioned, we can go tomorrow and I can vouch for your identity. He has sold to the Folly before, and he helped procure a number of particularly rare volumes, especially after the war."

I was still processing. And, I freely admit, having a bit of trouble reconciling the existence of angels with the Second World War, specifically the idea that said angel didn't have anything more important to do after the one of the largest humanitarian crises in history than help Nightingale find replacement books. But on the other hand I really didn't have anything better to be doing and, well. Since angels exist apparently, it's probably worth my time to try and get on their good side.

"Yeah, alright," I replied after a pause just this side of uncomfortable. "So does this mean that I've got to be worried about like, golems and stuff? I know you said there's only the two of them, but like what about all the weird stuff, like all the powers ascribed to priests and rabbis?"

Nightingale fixed me with a look.

"Or…not," I said. "I'll just add those to the list, then?"

 

[2] Despite Peter’s doubts, it may well have. The Angel in Duck Lane was a seventeenth-century printing house whose notable works include "Dooms-day: or, The great day of the Lord drawing nigh" (1674), "A Divine Message to the Elect Soule" (1676) and "The Ready Way to Get Riches:, or, The Poor Man's Counsellor" (1673; reprint 1681). Less notably, they printed a Bible that survives in a single copy, known to collectors as the Buggre Alle This Bible; it is not coincidental that it currently resides only doors away from its place of printing.

—

 

 **I met an angel today** , I texted Beverley. It was after dinner and I was happily monopolizing the tech cave's TV with _Stargate SG-1_ reruns. **No wings or anything tho**

 **That's weird, I don't remember seeing you xx** , she replied.

**Ha ha. Seriously**

**lol fine. he does have wings, you just didn't look hard enough.**

**I can't believe you knew abt this but you didn't tell me** , I tapped in furiously.

Beverley took her time replying. Maybe she was busy. I hoped she wasn't driving. Onscreen Sam Carter and Daniel Jackson were involved in a very intense conversation about Ancient science.

 **He's not something any of us really want to deal with,** she replied after a while.

 **Is he that powerful?** I asked.

**Maybe. Mum has no power over him, none of us do**

Concerning. But then he didn't seem interested in women, so maybe the explanation was mundane.

**Do you think he's really an angel?**

**He thinks he is, which is enough for me.** Fair point.

**What about the other one? That one's got to be something else, cos he'd be like…millennia old. Old as balls**

**Oh Crowley? I like him. he doesn’t like Ty but her river runs near his place so he messes her about. Ty's afraid of him and ty is never afraid of people so it's great**

**That is horrifying tbh.** If _Tyburn_ was afraid of him, then…

**It is delightful. But don’t you go mentioning him to her, it won't work for you**

**I can keep my mouth shut.** Really. It's possible. **  
**

**No**

**You can't** , she replied in quick succession.

**Well I could if I had incentive**

At which point it all got a bit sordid and I will do us all the favour of not getting into the details, especially the bit with the Goa'uld.

 

—

 

We returned to the book shop the next day after a thrilling morning spent sniffing around what turned out to be an entirely ordinary weird murder at the behest of one DCI MacNeil. Ever since Falcon activity renewed in a serious way, a few local Murder Teams had figured out that they could foist unpleasantly weird murders off on us, which meant a lot of false alarms as they desperately tried to not be the ones responsible for the latest bizarre death. This morning's corpse had died a thoroughly mundane death, to the great disappointment of myself, MacNeil, and probably even Nightingale.

The door was locked this time, but Nightingale knocked anyway. We stood there for what felt like ages—though my phone assured me it was only ten minutes—before the door clicked open and Nightingale pushed his way in.

"Nightingale." Fell sounded a bit resigned. "Good day."

The lights were on and he was sitting behind the counter with an older but well-kept white MacBook in front of him.

"Hello Aziraphale," replied Nightingale, perfectly polite as ever. "How are you?"

"Well enough," Fell said.

"And business is satisfactory?" Nightingale asked, with a twist of irony.

"More or less." Fell—the angel Aziraphale, apparently—caught Nightingale with a faintly irritated look. "I haven't seen you in years[3], and here you are. What exactly is it that you want?"

Nightingale, all manners, elected to ignore his tone. "I'm given to understand that you recently acquired a number of books potentially of interest to the Folly?"

At this point Aziraphale spied me standing a few feet behind Nightingale trying to look unobtrusive. "This again?"

"Er," I mumbled. "Yes?"

Aziraphale grumbled. "If you must."

"We must," Nightingale replied. "They are genuinely stolen property, and the Bodleian Library would appreciate their return."

A dark look crossed Aziraphale's face. "I hardly see the point in returning anything to their custody if they were so irresponsible as to _let_ valuable texts be stolen. There's no guarantee they simply won't be stolen again. Far better they remain safe."

And by safe he clearly meant with him. He was awfully cranky for a messenger of God.

Nightingale placed a hand on the desk. "I assure you that their security measures are more than adequate."

"Have they put the chains back, then?" said Aziraphale snippily.

It looked like we were in for the long haul. I gestured at Nightingale that I was going to go explore—that is, assess the surrounding environment. I wandered over to the shelves, eyeing long rows of heavy, leather-bound volumes. I wondered what sort of books an ancient celestial being owned. Probably not history. There were Bibles and religious works, and a large number of books proclaiming their ability to see the future. Scattered in between were works of fiction—Shakespeare, poetry, novels. An entire shelf unit was given over to old volumes of children's books: fairy tales, nursery rhymes, _Peter Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Book…_ The kind of swashbuckling imperialist adventure stories I figured Nightingale grew up on. They seemed a bit out of place, but who was I to know what did and didn't fit into the interests of angels.

I paused around the end of one aisle. From here I could see Aziraphale and the inspector, as well as the stack of volumes Aziraphale had produced. I remembered what Beverley said—he _had_ wings, I just wasn't looking close enough. This time I stared right at him and looked, _really_ looked, but all I noticed was that his burgundy jumper had holes around the collar. Sighing, I started to look away.

It was only then that I noticed it, flickering at the edge of my vision. There was a golden sort of haze and I looked intensely. Behind him, extending out in both directions, were enormous bloody _wings_. They were off-white and translucent, one extended protectively over the books sitting on the counter and the other reached out in a stretch. It twitched, snapped, then folded in on itself behind the angel's back. Neither Nightingale nor the angel seemed to notice. I shook my head to clear my eyes, and they were gone. All that was left was my boss and the same ordinary-looking middle-aged white guy I'd seen yesterday.

I kept poking around the shop, but it was for the most part _entirely_ ordinary. Not in the boring sense, because some of the books looked interesting enough, but there didn't seem to be any celestial secrets lurking among them, beyond a not-unexpected fondness for Oscar Wilde. I returned to the front of the shop, where Aziraphale was wrapping individual books in crisp white packing paper.

"Have you had any word from Mrs. Device-Pulsifer?" Nightingale inquired.

"Not recently," replied Aziraphale. "However she still refuses to allow any of her children to enter under your tutelage."

Nightingale tapped his fingers on the desk. "That is a shame. With her family's talent…"

Aziraphale shrugged. "She made her choice and so have her daughters. Witchcraft is older than your magic; she'll not see it die out because you want pupils." He looked at me. "Although I see you've found your own, anyway."

"Hi," I said, waving.

"Yes," said Nightingale curtly. "May I ask—have you observed any unusual magical activity in this area recently? Perhaps in the last few decades, or more recently…?"

Aziraphale shook his head. "Crowley and I haven't been in London as often as we used to, these last few years. Not since we got the cottage at any rate and before that—well. We were both rather preoccupied during the eighties. Very busy, lots of work going on, you know how it is, and then there was all that business with…"

He trailed off into a well-educated prevarication and coughed politely. "Anyway. The short answer is no, nothing specific. Although Crowley might be able to answer differently, he does pay so much more attention to these kinds of things."

He placed the final book into the box and closed the lid. "I'm terribly sorry I couldn’t be of any more assistance."

"It's quite alright," Nightingale assured him. "Peter, would you mind…?"

He gestured to the box and I stamped down a cynical part of my brain that was fairly certain I'd only been brought along for this purpose. Mostly because I was pretty sure even Nightingale would deign to carry his own books, at least the distance to and from the Jag.

"Don't lift it by the sides," Aziraphale cautioned. "Lift from the bottom. I don't want them spilling out all over the street or anything."

I nodded and carefully slid the box into my arms, only buckling a little under the weight. Right. He was being serious about that.

With that Aziraphale and Nightingale bade their impeccably polite goodbyes. I staggered out the door, with the inspector pushing ahead of me to open the door (manually, no magic; I guess that wasn't something angels tolerated on their premises) when I stood there fumbling with the handle. Aziraphale followed us out and watched us until we drove off, wary.

 

[3] Not since April 1999, to be precise, when Aziraphale and Crowley unexpectedly encountered Nightingale at a sushi restaurant after a particularly bad night at the theatre courtesy of that year's revival of _The Pajama Game._

—

 

That was that, or so I thought. One wet day in April, while out conducting routine inquiries into our latest case (nothing too exciting, I promise), it happened again. I was surveying the residents of Mayfair, all the while trying to avoid the residence of one Cecilia Tyburn Thames, and noticed an antique Bentley. A _real_ antique.

Now I realize that for most people the Jag is an antique, but this was the real deal, matchbox shape and everything. Cars that old are pretty rare these days and as far as I knew most of them belonged to museums and serious collectors, the kind with a hundred cars in a rotating elevator tower. Not just parked on the street with no more protection than a very standard-looking set of tire clamps.

I hadn't talked to anyone on that side of the street yet, so I crossed over to take a closer look (or as I would later tell Nightingale, "interview the residents of 4 Queen Street, Mayfair"). The Bentley was sleek and black, without so much as a spot of rust or even a scratch. So: cared for, despite sitting out in the street. Maybe the owner was just popping into one of the buildings for a minute, although given today's drizzle it hardly seemed like the best time to take your valuable and potentially rustable antique car out for a spin.

It was also illegally parked. I spent a minute debating whether or not to report that before deciding that it was technically outside my jurisdiction; also, I seriously doubted anyone at Transport for London would treat it with the respect it deserved. I circled the car once or twice, admiring its condition, and—after checking no one else was around—peered inside. The interior was vintage too, and in much better condition than the Jag, which entirely justified my recent argument to Nightingale that the seats needed work. That's when I noticed the entirely anachronistic radio/CD player combo. I was pulling my phone out to take a photo for the purposes of horrifying _someone_ , possibly the Internet, when suddenly there was heat, extreme heat, heat so hot my eyes were burning with it. I pulled back, startled.

"Step back, wizard."

I whirled around. A man stood just outside the door to number four, and in his well-cut suit it took me a moment to place him. If I didn't know better, I would have taken him for a lawyer—probably the kind that gets paid obscene amounts to get politicians and television stars out of drunk and disorderly charges.

"You," I said, in a fantastic display of eloquence.

"Me," said the Serpent. "What were you doing with my car?"

"Sorry, I—uh—I was just." I cleared my throat. "I was admiring its excellent condition."

"I've looked after it," he said, suspiciously. "You're the Nightingale's apprentice."

"DC Peter Grant, with the Folly," I replied. "You're the Serpent."

He made a face. "It's Crowley."

"As in Aleister Crowley?" I said with some disbelief.

This time he _really_ scowled, scrubbing one hand through his hair. "Coincidence, honest."

I looked away. I must have failed to hide the skepticism on my face because he groaned.

" _No,_ not like that. Not like them," he snapped with some venom. "Not a descendant. No relation. His parents were _fundamentalists_ , for fuck's sake."

He looked rather disgusted, which struck me as kind of funny. You'd think an age-old being of Christian mythology would be overall pretty pleased with fundamentalist Christianity. Apparently not.

"What are you doing around here, anyway?" Crowley asked, cutting into my train of thought.

"Routine inquiries. There's been some…criminal activity not too far from here," I told him, not quite wanting to get into case details with occult beings of unknown allegiance and potentially Satanic origins. "I'm looking for witnesses."

Crowley looked pointedly northwards, towards Lady Ty's house. I shook my head.

"Too bad," he said.

Figuring I shouldn't waste the opportunity, I asked whether he'd seen anything interesting the previous Tuesday.

He shrugged. "There was a documentary on about manatees. Did you know they're off the endangered species list? In America at least, I'm not so sure about elsewhere."

That was…not what I was expecting. "I mean the criminal activity type of interesting."

"Is that really interesting?" Crowley mused, before shaking his head. "No."

He was a lot friendlier today, or at least more polite, and at this point my mouth decided to run away with itself.

"Can I ask you something?" I said, all innocence.

"Er—depends what," Crowley replied. His hand came up to fidget with the arm of his sunglasses.

"Do you consider Monty Python’s _Life of Brian_ accurate to the period, or could it have benefitted from first-hand knowledge?"

Crowley didn’t exactly roll his eyes, but he shook his head in a motion that strongly implied that an eye roll was happening. “Seriously?”

I stared back with all the might of someone with multiple course credits in interrogation. “Absolutely.”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Crowley. He shoved one hand in his jacket pocket. “I did my best to keep well out of the way of those sort of Events. I think I spent most of those years further south—I remember taking a trip to India on a Roman ship—but Aziraphale’s the one if you want a serious answer, but all I know is that the world’s always a lot more ridiculous than people give it credit for.”

"Good to know," was all I managed to say. Making a stupid joke was one thing, but it was more surreal than I'd expected to listen to someone talk so casually about ancient history. Now I'm used to Nightingale's war stories, Molly's turn-of-the-century cleaning techniques, and even the older rivers casually talking about events from a few hundred years ago. But there's something kind of next-level weird about a skinny bloke who looks like he's done a line in a public loo before appearing in court to argue that his client was just having a laugh talk about what he was doing before the collapse of the Roman Empire.

"I guess." Crowley shrugged and shoved his other hand in his pocket.

Lacking anything else to do, I ran my hand over the fender. There it was again: fire, sulphur, and wailing, musical and high.

"What's with you lot and burning?" I asked. "Is it from like…Hell, or something?"

Crowley snorted a laugh. "Not unless you mean the M25."

I did crack a smile at that. "Seriously."

"I am," Crowley replied. "The M25—it's shaped like—I got a _commendation_. Not that—the point is, the M25. Circle of Hell. For a bit, anyway."

I stared at him, blinked slowly, and patted the fender again. "Right."

"Yeah," said Crowley. "Don't—don't think about it."

"Right."

"1990 was a weird year."

"Yes, sir." I definitely did not ask him how metal had managed to hold vestigia for a quarter century, but it was a near thing. It was as he said: he'd looked after it.

"Er, look," said Crowley, pulling his hands out of his pockets and stretching his fingers. "If that's all—here."

He snapped his fingers. A lushly green spider plant appeared in his hands, defying all laws of the conservation of mass.

"You might as well take this," he said, holding it out to me. "This one wasn't going to make the cut this month anyway."

I started to take it before I paused, remembering years of warnings about the power of gifts. "I'm not sure if—"

Crowley tilted his head at me. "Right, you hang about with the Rivers. No obligation, then. Just take it."

He shook it at me and this time I took it from him. The pot was surprisingly heavy and a bit damp. "Thanks."

"No need. Like I said, I was getting rid of it." Crowley shrugged. "They filter air, spider plants. Good for indoors, or so they say. Air in London's never _really_ fresh anyway."

With that bit of business wrapped up, Crowley pushed up his left sleeve and looked at his (very expensive) watch.

"Right, I've got to be off," he said vaguely, head swiveling about to check out the street. "If that's all?"

"Yeah, yeah," I replied, stepping away from the Bentley as Crowley headed to the driver's side and pulled open the door. "Uh—thank you for your cooperation."

He smirked a little, climbing into the car and slamming the door. "Ciao."

He pulled away from the curb, accelerating down the road with alarming speed and taking the corner without stopping. There was no way that engine was original, either.

I spent the longer-than-entirely-necessary (thank you London traffic) drive home considering what to do with it. I thought about putting it in the tech cave, before reasoning that if it had appeared by magic, it was very possibly magical _itself_ and thus not something I wanted to put near my laptop. The lab maybe? For further experimentation. I didn't want it in my room because I already had a pretty strong sense that it was giving off some kind of aura and at the very least the last thing I wanted to see at night was a demonic plant. In the end I just brought it into the Folly and left it by the atrium's landline. At least there someone was bound to see it sooner or later.

No more than half an hour later, I passed by on my way back out to the tech cave and was somewhat surprised to note it had manifested itself a new pot and a small wrought-iron plant stand. I paused, vaguely wondering whether this qualified as Phenomena, and then Molly swept past me bearing an enamelled watering jug.

Ah. I meant to go about my business—I did actually have work to do—but I caught the strangest, faintest of noises. I turned around, attempting subterfuge, and there Molly was. She was leaning over the plant, watering it, and hissing. Telling it something in her own secret language.

Right, I thought, that's enough weirdness for today. More things on heaven and earth, Horatio, et cetera, et cetera, and headed out to the relative simplicity of the tech cave and HOLMES. Time for proper police work.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you most of all to Tea, who is responsible for enabling this and who I absolutely let down by allowing this to languish on my hard drive for so long. Also to @pasiphile, who beta’d this a few years back. (Yes, I am that slow.) Thanks most of all to the incoming TV series for giving me panic about all good things coming to an end, and wanting to get this out before anyone got any ideas.
> 
> I owe old-school GO fandom a nod of thanks for the Angel in Duck Lane – not sure if the site exists anymore, but I do remember a fansite that discussed potential bookshop locations, and mentioned the real-life Angel in Duck Lane printing house. The books mentioned are real - in fact most of the bibliography stuff is either real or accurate because if Aaronovitch’s priority is accurate police procedure, mine is accurate rare books librarianship. (Aziraphale doesn’t trust nitrile gloves yet, hence the cotton. I personally have never found a cotton glove that stays on my hand!)
> 
> I spent a lot of time on Google Maps for this fic, knowing how firmly situated the world of the Folly is in the real world – so there’s a [saved map](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1YNrGB--9GbWvpPAD29tiRCCVB-8&usp=sharing) with locations from both stories that I used to pinpoint addresses. It’s lightly jossed in that this was written pre-Hanging Tree so I believe Lady Ty’s address is likely incorrect.


End file.
